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RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES BY WILLIAM LANE CRAIG:
On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision
Reasonable Faith (3rd Edition): Christian Truth and Apologetics
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The Need for Apologetics in the Local Church
By Perseus Poku and Rodney Scott
Apologetics is biblical. That’s why it should play a foundational role in the ministry of the local church. However, here are five additional reasons apologetics should be a staple in the life of the church.
First, it helps believers master the fundamentals of Christian doctrine so that they can effectively evangelize the lost (Titus 2:7-8). Second, it provides answers to objections leveled against truth (1 Pet. 3:15). Third, it inspires believers as well as nonbelievers to inquire more about the Christian faith (Acts 17:32-34; 26:28). Fourth, it teaches Christians to think critically through the philosophies of opposing worldviews (1 Tim. 1:3, 6-7). Finally, it can help the Christian who is experiencing a crisis of faith.1
In short, apologetics is an essential component to help us grow in our faith and is therefore vital to the church in the twenty-first century. It is not vital to the church’s existence per se, but rather her quality of existence, that is, her effectiveness in engaging the culture for Christ (Matt. 5:13). Consider the words of Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton as they describe the infiltration of the church into the world: “We learn that until comparatively recent times, Christians have actively worked out the implications of their faith in all areas of life and scholarship-from philosophy to mathematics to physics to biology. Christian faith has not been a purely private matter.
'Like' The Poached Egg on Facebook! Follow @ThePoachedEgg Donate to TPE! Nor has it been shut off in a separate part of life, as though it were relevant to worship but not to work.”2 It is time we take our rightful stand in the world. The local church has been given an identity. She is the Lord’s mouthpiece and the world’s conscience. She is salt and God can use apologetics to shake her and the world up. Every church dedicated to the Lord’s mandate (Matt. 28:19-20) should be interested in evangelism. If evangelism deals with the spreading of the good news, then those who share it must be ready to articulate and defend the faith (1 Pet. 3:15).
Birth of an Apologetics Ministry. The ability to give a defense for the apostolic doctrine is at the core of the Christian faith (Acts 2:42). Any believer who constantly shares the good news will eventually meet someone who has a question about the Christian faith. This was my (Perseus’s) plight when we began witnessing in 1991. I just accepted Christ a year before and I had a zeal for witnessing. This burning desire to share Christ was also fueled by my close friends. They also loved the Lord and were willing to spread the gospel each Saturday. We met at the church at 11:00 a.m. for prayer and consecration. We would then walk the streets around the church sharing the gospel door to door. It was through this method of evangelism that our apologetics ministry was born…
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RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:
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Notes from the Field: Clarifying, Sparring, and Making Progress
by Melissa Travis
This past weekend, my church hosted its first ever apologetics conference. We had a lineup of eight Christian apologists speaking on a variety of topics such as “Why God Allows Evil,” “An Atheist’s Journey to Faith,” “The Challenge of World Religions,” and several others. J.P. Moreland was our keynote speaker for the weekend, and in true J.P. fashion, he inspired, motivated, and made our brains sweat.
I taught a session entitled “Intelligent Design 101.” This was my second opportunity to publicly present that particular set of material. SO MUCH FUN! How awesome to have a room of about 70 people who are interested in hearing you talk…for 45 whole minutes…on your FAVORITE topic?! Heavenly, I tell you. I discussed the origin of life issue and the inference to an intelligent agent.
Three things that are very important to me whenever I address an audience on any ID-related topic are:
1) Teaching them to correctly define all terms
2) Showing them how to detect straw-man arguments
3) Explaining where to draw the boundary lines in real-life discussions about design versus naturalism
'Like' The Poached Egg on Facebook! Follow @ThePoachedEgg Donate to TPE! The talk proceeded as planned, and I managed to finish on time (for a change). The Q & A time started off with some great questions about the Stanley Miller origin of life experiments, chance and necessity, and engaging with skeptics. Then, something crazy fascinating occurred. A gentleman in the second row, one that had listened with rapt attention through my entire presentation, spoke up in response to another audience member’s comment.
He opened his statement with, “I’m an atheist and…”
I wish a video camera had been rolling, rather than just the recording microphone on my lapel. Many heads in the room whipped around in shock. It was as if those cartoon thought clouds appeared over their heads with the words, “Oh my! There’s an actual atheist in our midst!” They turned in their chairs in order to better see this curious phenomenon…
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RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:
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How to Use Pop Culture as a Community Apologist
by Leslie Keeney
I’ve been contributing to a series at the Christian Apologetics Alliance with the goal of encouraging people to become “community apologists.” The purpose of the series is to help the local church develop an intellectual defense of Christianity by raising up, in every community, “someone with an interest in apologetics who will make themselves available to teach apologetics in their church and community.”
Since one of my areas of interest (I can’t say “expertise” quite yet) is using pop culture to demonstrate the existence of a universal moral intuition, I thought it might be important to remind these community apologists that anyone who wants to engage the church, in addition to being able to wade around in the historical, evidential, and logical arguments for faith, needs to be able to dip his toe in the pond of pop culture.
Why? Because this is where many people live. And if they don’t, their children do. And while TV and films may not be fodder for the teleological or cosmological argument for God’s existence, it is the perfect place to start a discussion on the moral argument for God.
For anyone not familiar with the moral argument for God, it’s pretty straight forward. While there are several variations of the syllogism, the basic idea is that most people throughout the world and throughout history have had a moral intuition that certain things are always right (truth, loyalty, bravery, compassion, self-sacrifice) and certain things are always wrong (wanton cruelty, the killing of innocent people, stealing, lying, etc.)
'Like' The Poached Egg on Facebook! Follow @ThePoachedEgg Donate to TPE! The most famous version of the moral argument probably comes from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, in which he writes:
These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.
Once we’ve established that these universal moral intuitions exist, it’s not hard to move from there to the assertion that they must have a source—a moral lawgiver, if you will. The challenge that many community apologists will face is that in a post-modern culture, many people will claim that good and evil are relative—that there are no moral absolutes.
The apologist says “sure there are.” The skeptic says “prove it” and the pew-sitter says “how can I demonstrate that to my friends?”
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How to Use Pop Culture as a Community Apologist | The Ruthless Monk
Part One: Stepping Up to the Plate: The Call for Community Apologists
Part Two: How To Get Apologetics In Your Local Church
Part Three: Becoming a Community Apologist: The Significance and Cost of Being an Apologist
Part Four: Getting People Into Apologetics: It Starts With You
Part Five: Personal Obstacles to Becoming a Community Apologist
Part Six: An invitation to women apologists: Join the dance floor!
Part Seven: Defending the Faith in Your Community - Every Day
Part Eight: How To Get Apologetics In Your Local Church 2
Part Nine: Community Apologetics: Starting with your family
Part Ten: Community Apologetics – One Model
Part Eleven: Abbreviated Christianity and Christian Case Making
Part Twelve: Teaching Effective Apologetics for Small Time Periods
Part Thirteen: Becoming a Community Apologist: The Apologetic of Not Knowing
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Apologetics Hit and Misc: How to Prepare For Hostility
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MIDWEEK RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES ROUNDUP:
Christian Confidence: An Introduction to Defending the Faith
Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today
Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture
Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning
A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test
7 Truths That Changed the World: Discovering Christianity's Most Dangerous Ideas
Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith
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Training Case Makers in Women’s Ministry with Mary Jo Sharp
by J Warner Wallace
Defending The Faith: Apologetics in Women’s Ministry
Mary Jo Sharp, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids Michigan 2012Why Do You Believe That? A Faith Conversation
Mary Jo Sharp, Lifeway Press, Nashville Tennessee 2012When Greg first interviewed Mary Jo Sharp on the Stand To Reason radio show, he described her as a “strange bird”. Doesn’t sound like much of an introduction for a Christian Case Maker, does it? But Greg was trying to make a point about the rarity of women apologists on the Christian landscape. If you’re interested in apologetics, you’ve probably already noticed the conspicuous lack of women in this field. Why is this the case? Is it a lack of interest or understanding on the part of women’s ministries? Maybe. Is it a lack of resources that are specifically designed for women? Could be. Enter Mary Jo Sharp.
Mary Jo burst onto the case-making scene several years ago when she grew her Two Chix Apologetics Facebook page into ConfidentChristianity.com and began speaking around the country. After a few key debates and conference appearances, Mary Jo is
'Like' The Poached Egg on Facebook! Follow @ThePoachedEgg Partner with us! now channeling her energy with a directed effort to encourage and train women to become Christian Case Makers. Mary Jo has two new books, Defending The Faith: Apologetics in Women’s Ministry and Why Do You Believe That? A Faith Conversation; together they form a powerful set of resources that will help train and integrate apologetics into women’s ministry.
Defending The Faith: Apologetics in Women’s Ministry is a succinct, readable six-chapter book that seeks a new model for women’s ministry “that addresses the basic need of women to know the truth about God and thus to trust Him: the study of apologetics specifically for women so that they can learn the truth about God, believe in Him, and live out their faith through their actions.” Mary Jo follows this outline carefully, utilizing personal stories (her background as an atheist growing up in a “Portland, Oregon, where there is not a church on every corner,” was particularly interesting to me) and illustrations from her adventures as a speaker to help readers understand the importance of Christian case making and the impact it can have on our behavior as Christians…
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RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES BY MARY JO SHARP:
Defending the Faith: Apologetics in Women's Ministry
Why Do You Believe That? A Faith Conversation
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Press Release from Ratio Christi
by Blake Anderson
Ratio Christi is very excited to announce the merger of Ratio Christi and ThePoachedEgg.net. The Poached Egg is a popular Christian apologetics news and blogging conglomeration web site. Ratio Christi provides apologetics resources to students and faculty on university campuses around the world. The two organizations are joining forces in order to offer even more resources to apologists and college campuses. The partnership is an omelet made in heaven.
ThePoachedEgg.net is a website (and on Facebook here) founded and edited by Greg West. Greg is passionately committed to the cause of Christian apologetics and has been a humble servant of the apologetics community for years, providing readers all over the world a large and continually expanding virtual library of articles and essays compiled from all over the World Wide Web. Noted apologists, biblical scholars, philosophers, scientists, historians, students, and laymen all come together under this one site. The Poached Egg is a one-stop shop for discovering vital resources that you may not even knew existed whether you are new to apologetics or a veteran apologist, The Poached Egg should be one website that every Christian has bookmarked and shares with their church community, skeptics of Christianity, family and friends, and fellow believers who may be struggling with doubt.
'Like' The Poached Egg on Facebook! Follow @ThePoachedEgg Partner with us! Why are we merging? First, Ratio Christi (RC) strives to be a servant to the apologetics enterprise. We see ourselves as successful if we can promote and help expand the ministry impact of other apologists and organizations. Greg West and The Poached Egg (TPE) has the same goal. We both hope to provide exponential growth to this movement aimed at discipleship of the Christian mind. We are two eggs from the same chicken.
Second, RC wants to provide resources to its campus clubs without reinventing the wheel. RC chapter directors and students will be encouraged to use TPE as an online apologetics database and as a resource for daily apologetics articles, event notices, and reviews and recommendations of the latest in apologetics books, curriculum, and other resources…
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Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. |
I urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. Jude 3 |
You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. John 18:37 |
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 |
For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 2 Peter 1:16 |
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